Thoughts on BPs for the 6 Nations

My first post since the 6 Nations have concluded, so first things first.

Well done England... A successive Slam is difficult anyway, but to have to go to Dublin to do it was always a big ask. But well done on the title.


Now to my post.. We've now completed the first 6 Nations with the Bonus Points.

What's your thoughts... Good, Bad, or no impact.

I still think they where pointless and should be scrapped, the 6 Nations doesn't need them and they add no value.

As for the end result, they had no effect. Ok, it could be argued that having them meant more kickable penalties where turned away for a kick for touch and try to get the try, but in reality, it usually meant kicking away and turning away 3 points.

And although, they had no impact on the end table, as England only team to win 4 games, and the other places (2nd, 3rd, 4th) came down to points difference anyway, you should consider the alternative.

If England didn't get any bonus points, and Ireland or France or Scotland had managed a BP in every games they would have won the title finishing above England. Better still if they (Ireland, France and Scotland) ALL took BP from everyone of their games, they would have ALL finished above England, pushing England into 4th Spot, even thought they only won 3 games and England won 4.

It is because of this scenario, I think the BP should be scrapped in the 6 Nations.

What's your thoughts...

I don't like it, leave the bloody tournament alone.

using the England vs. Scotland game BPs worked. The game was over, but Scotland in pursuit of the try BP kept battering away and it made the game enjoyable even after it was over as a legitimate contest.

But using that as a reason to keep them, means that its not inconceivable that Italy could be smashed by all sides by 60+ points, but if they managed to get Try BPs they could end up not winning a game, but still finish above another side. (actually not sure if NOT winning a game would do that, but winning 1 game could)..

It actually screws it up in my opinion. The number of Games Won should out way the BPs. So may be they need to be changes, so that games won is the main point for the table and then a BP, but for BP to over rule games won is just plain stupid.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:using the England vs. Scotland game BPs worked. The game was over, but Scotland in pursuit of the try BP kept battering away and it made the game enjoyable even after it was over as a legitimate contest.

It's also a perfect example of why BPs don't work, why should a team that's been embarrassed be afforded the opportunity for any points?

Irelands win over England was a better win than any over Italy yet they got less points for it.

Don't like try BPs. How is a 4 try to 3 victory better than a 3 try to 0 one?

The teams on tied wins havent been much affected by the system ....The old paper rock scissors system wouldnt have made any difference with Scotland having beaten Ireland who beat France who beat Scotland.

Points scored or tried scored wouldve swapped Irleand and France.

I wasnt a fan of the change but I cant see its really made much odds. The chance of a team ever jumping a place by virtue of 4 bonus points over a team thats won more is pretty slim.

Scottrf wrote:Don't like try BPs. How is a 4 try to 3 victory better than a 3 try to 0 one?

Many competitiuons use " Tries scored" as a tie breaker.

Gooseberry wrote:The teams on tied wins havent been much affected by the system ....The old paper rock scissors system wouldnt have made any difference with Scotland having beaten Ireland who beat France who beat Scotland.

Points scored or tried scored wouldve swapped Irleand and France.

I wasnt a fan of the change but I cant see its really made much odds. The chance of a team ever jumping a place by virtue of 4 bonus points over a team thats won more is pretty slim.

It hasn't made much odds. But it could have done. For me a 4 try close loss isn't as good as a draw, and 3 BP wins and a LBP/TBP loss isn't better than 4 wins.

The number of Games Won should out way the BPs.

Counter argument - If a side manages to win 3 games with lots of tries and lose one game narrowly - so getting 3x5 points for try bonus wins and one for losing BP - is that not as good as 4 narrow wins - scraping a win by 3 penalties to a converted try. That I think is the justification for bonus points - to reward a team for keeping on going rather than stopping and retreating into defence mode for a "safe" win. Yes it is a bit harsh on Italy who get targeted as the easy try bonus side, and yes you can still have a really good match without 4 tries but there are situations where bonus points might make for an interesting game.
Example - if Ireland had beaten Wales - then the match at the weekend would have been for the 6 nations - and Ireland may have won if they had denied England a bonus point (down to points diff). So with the score at 13-9 - instead of Ireland playing safe and hanging on to the ball to deny England the win, they would have had a reason for trying to score more. And that would have maybe made for more excitement as Ireland went on the attack - maybe then giving England more of a chance for a counterattack.

poissonrouge wrote:

The number of Games Won should out way the BPs.

Counter argument - If a side manages to win 3 games with lots of tries and lose one game narrowly - so getting 3x5 points for try bonus wins and one for losing BP - is that not as good as 4 narrow wins - scraping a win by 3 penalties to a converted try. That I think is the justification for bonus points - to reward a team for keeping on going rather than stopping and retreating into defence mode for a "safe" win. Yes it is a bit harsh on Italy who get targeted as the easy try bonus side, and yes you can still have a really good match without 4 tries but there are situations where bonus points might make for an interesting game.
Example - if Ireland had beaten Wales - then the match at the weekend would have been for the 6 nations - and Ireland may have won if they had denied England a bonus point (down to points diff). So with the score at 13-9 - instead of Ireland playing safe and hanging on to the ball to deny England the win, they would have had a reason for trying to score more. And that would have maybe made for more excitement as Ireland went on the attack - maybe then giving England more of a chance for a counterattack.

Nope. Winning is the objective. Nothing is ever better than more wins.

Agreed... Number of Wins should define the table, not BPs.

Maybe the next differentiator, after wins, should by Try Difference not BPs for trys. That way defence plays a part as well, and come more into play as try BP relies on 4 trys scored then that it. Try Diff, give more to go for if you have scored 4, 5 or even 6+, as well as giving incentive for the opponents to go out for trys, as it will chip away at those scored if you are behind.

Bonus points are fine.

A team with fewer wins will never overtake a team with more wins in practice. Don't talk about it as a hypothetical, it won't happen. It would take the team with the wins completely ignoring the fact that they are playing for bonus points. In which case it's that team's fault for not looking up and playing to the competition rules.

Points difference is no better than bonus points, especially with Italy. More often than not, for a team playing for the Championship Italy at home is a try bonus point and +40. Italy away might be a try bonus point and +20. If you're playing points difference first, that's a huge difference, a disproportionate reward for pummelling a beaten Italy into the ground.

It could happen.... Its simple maths. That's why they gave the extra points for a Slam, but in truth there is more chance of a 3 win side beating a 4 win side.

What's your thoughts... Good, Bad, or no impact.

Not sure. Can I let you know once we get a TBP?

mikey_dragon wrote:

What's your thoughts... Good, Bad, or no impact.

Not sure. Can I let you know once we get a TBP?

I'm not sure they worked in terms of changing anything in the leaderboard. But I don't think they had a negative impact.... probably forced Ireland to play a bit more than they like doing in this competition *yawn* - that's a bonus!

No, I was cautious about them in the beginning but, hell, leave them there. They provide a certain incentive to play a more positive game. It didn't always happen but I think the general try tally is up on other years, is it?

No9 wrote:It could happen.... Its simple maths. That's why they gave the extra points for a Slam, but in truth there is more chance of a 3 win side beating a 4 win side.

The maths are simple. 16 + 0 < 12 + 5. We can all work that out.

It won't happen though. Never.

England would have had to have beaten Scotland without a bonus point (could have happened in another year), not picked up the losing bonus point against Ireland (again, could have happened in another year) and not picked up the try bonus point against Italy (despite being good enough to win 3 of the other 4 games - probably not likely that both those would be true).

Meanwhile, Ireland would have had to get the try bonus point against Scotland (check), the losing bonus point against France (check), the try bonus point against Scotland (they were only one try away), get the bonus point against Wales (again, probably only 1 try away from the LBP), and then get another bonus point against Wales or England - which would have needed to score at least 3 more tries in either game, either away or at home to the would-be champs (unlikely at best).

And as unlikely as it would have been that Ireland would have put themselves in that position ahead of the final weekend, England would have been on 16 points and Ireland would have been on 12/13 points. England would have known exactly what they needed to get out of the game to win the Championship. If they then got thrashed conceding 4 tries, they wouldn't deserve it anyway.

I think bonus points would work better if all teams in the competition were competitive.

That aside, given the choice of a championship decided by bonus points, or by points difference, I'd go with bonus points. I like seeing teams pushing for bonus points towards the end of games.

SecretFly wrote:I'm not sure they worked in terms of changing anything in the leaderboard.  But I don't think they had a negative impact.... probably forced Ireland to play a bit more than they like doing in this competition *yawn* - that's a bonus!

No, I was cautious about them in the beginning but, hell, leave them there.  They provide a certain incentive to play a more positive game.  It didn't always happen but I think the general try tally is up on other years, is it?

Try stats are misleading and I think you need to discount Italy to get a proper analysis. If they have a bad year they can leak twice as many tries as other years, they're definitely outliers in that respect.

But in absence of proper analysis, there were 66 tries scored this year, there were 71 tries scored last year. However, there were only 62 scored in 2015 (despite that mad final Saturday), 61 in 2014, 37 in 2013 and 46 in 2012.

The tournament average is 62, but that includes a few years of big scores in the early noughties (75 in 2000, 2001, 2002 and 74 in 2003) when defences were more suspect. 66 is definitely a good number compared to some recent years.

robbo277 wrote:

SecretFly wrote:I'm not sure they worked in terms of changing anything in the leaderboard.  But I don't think they had a negative impact.... probably forced Ireland to play a bit more than they like doing in this competition *yawn* - that's a bonus!

No, I was cautious about them in the beginning but, hell, leave them there.  They provide a certain incentive to play a more positive game.  It didn't always happen but I think the general try tally is up on other years, is it?

Try stats are misleading and I think you need to discount Italy to get a proper analysis. If they have a bad year they can leak twice as many tries as other years, they're definitely outliers in that respect.

But in absence of proper analysis, there were 66 tries scored this year, there were 71 tries scored last year. However, there were only 62 scored in 2015 (despite that mad final Saturday), 61 in 2014, 37 in 2013 and 46 in 2012.

The tournament average is 62, but that includes a few years of big scores in the early noughties (75 in 2000, 2001, 2002 and 74 in 2003) when defences were more suspect. 66 is definitely a good number compared to some recent years.

Meh. The law interpretataions have changed to favour attacking rugby, and the weather was pretty good this year. The time ball is in play has increased now as well. They even added 20 minutes to a game to get the count up by one. You still saw seeveral of the "bigger" teams come with fairly flat "negative" gameplans. Almost all tries score were in anhilations of the awful Italian side and the game where Scotland ended up with a makeshift line.

The games between the big 4 were almost all low scoring turgid affairs. Still produced some real drama mind, but not because of bonus points.

All in I dont think its really had any quantifiable impact.

This year was an odd one and the bonus points didn't have an effect on the outcome because of the similar number of bonus points that were won!

I can't remember a year where the results were so close?

England - Lost to Ireland
France - Beat Scotland and Wales, lost to England and Ireland
Ireland - Beat England and France, lost to Scotland and Wales
Scotland - Beat Ireland and Wales, lost to France and England
Wales - Beat Ireland, lost to France, England and Scotland

Forget Italy. They were humped!

So England rightfully on top for only losing one game. Wales, rightfully bottom for only winning one game.

Because the teams were winning and losing to each other, it made bonus points irrelevant. Now just for arguments sake, if Scotland had beaten England, then things would have been very different!

I say bin the bonus point in its format. The table should be decided by games won, if two teams are tied on points then position is based on their results against each other. If we have another odd year like this year and head to heads can't be used, then use a bonus point system (or tries scored) to differentiate.

It's a moot point anyway! Who really cares if they finished 2nd or 3rd?

Bonus points = dumb down = raging success (or abject failure)

Did the 6N committee that "trialled" them have the first baldy notion whether they achieved anything or indeed harmed anything - didn't think so.

Gives the poor bottom teams something to play for other than the wooden spoon.

Once again my post was removed, MODS at least have the decency to give a valid reason for your OTT reaction. Just goes to show what a little power does to the weak minded.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:using the England vs. Scotland game BPs worked. The game was over, but Scotland in pursuit of the try BP kept battering away and it made the game enjoyable even after it was over as a legitimate contest.

I really don't think that was the case - maybe a tiny bit of it but this scotland team is set up to score tries so try to score tries is what they do

Agree TJ. Very few teams in the professional era give up if they are losing - in fact the opposite where it's winning teams take their foot off the gas. Teams are geared to go 80 minutes and if they are behind will want to get some points to make the post match recriminations less arduous. Teams don't need an incentive to keep playing from behind.

OTOH when a winning team secures a TBP and are 40 points ahead as in the England Scotland clash there is very little incentive for England to keep playing - the bonus point system actually encourages the winning sides to ease off.

The concept is inherently unfair, in that both teams do not have the same motivation to win or stop the other team winning extra points. If it has to exist the LBP should come from the winners tally reducing their league points from 4 to 3. There should be no more than one TBP available for each game awarded to the team that scores at least four tries AND they must have scored the last try in the game.